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According to Silicon Alley Insider, Yahoo may be looking to sell its music subscription service. The move makes sense: Ian Rogers, the general manager of Yahoo Music, declared in October that he was done inconveniencing users with the digital restrictions labels required for online music subscriptions. Subscriptions simply haven't materialized as the profitable business model for artists, labels, and services alike that many had imagined. Freeing itself of the failed model will allow Yahoo to focus on free, ad-supported music. The only problem now is dumping the old service.

The only serious potential buyers are RealNetworks, though they may have fallen out of buyout talks already, and Napster, which continues to perform poorly and just recently began to shift its strategy away from subscriptions, too. Getting out of the subscription business is probably a necessary move for Yahoo, but the company may just have to settle for mothballing the operation. Good riddance.